Monday, February 16, 2015

Our temple
hosted the Treasures of Uptown Interfaith Coalition event – watching and discussing
the film “Unlikely Friends” (http://www.unlikelyfriendsforgive.com). I heard
about it from Tricycle Magazine which time to time notifies its subscribers
about small films dealing with big issues, and I recommended it to Treasures
for an upcoming event. The film was a nice follow-up to “The Power of
Forgiveness” which we showed at a previous event. But it was more intimate,
focusing on a few individuals, not famous or tied to big organizations, who
come together to know each other as friends – the convicted perpetrators and
the people harmed by them.

With the wintry
weather, we didn’t have the turnout we hoped for, but the twenty or so people who
came were a good cross-section of community members. In our discussion we noted
that people in the film kept saying that “forgiveness” of criminals doesn’t
mean condoning their destructive acts. But as Seth from Peoples Church
commented, the word “forgiveness” is commonly used to mean “wipe away,” such as
a debt or fees are “forgiven.” He said we probably need a better word for what
“Unlikely Friends” illustrated for us – to see the other as human and not
categorized on the basis of one act.

As seen in my
rant in the last entry and some other entries, I don’t like to be put in a
category and looked upon as an object – whether as a “Buddhist,” “Asian,”
“female” etc. In the “Brief Introduction to Buddhism” classes I tell the
students they probably all know what it’s like to be categorized, when they
hear “your kind” or “you people.” I tell them what the Buddha taught is to get
us out of that thinking – about ourselves and other beings. Whether it’s
reading from Pure and Simple by
Upasika Kee Nanayon or The Record of
Lin-chi, we hear the great teachers telling us to approach life with an
open heart/mind and not make the mistake of imposing “name and form” on our
experiences.

As I heard on a
recent broadcast of the NPR show “Invisibilia” (http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/384065938/the-power-of-categories?showDate=2015-02-06),
it’s useful for us as infants and children to put things in categories, but
real people don’t fit neatly into any kinds of categories. In our discussion of
the film “Unlikely Friends,” we acknowledged how easy it is to talk of
“criminals” and “victims” as one-dimensional objects. The individuals in the
film bravely proved to themselves and each other that they won’t let one
terrible act in the past define who they are and will be and how they interact
with mutual respect.

In Buddhism the
principle of kshanti comes close to the idea of forgiveness. The Sino-Japanese
translation nin-niku could be
interpreted as “forbear abuse,” but the character nin忍
is also used in Buddhist translations to indicate “insight.” It’s one thing to
forbear “put up with” things, but it’s another to strive for insight –
understanding of the situation, one’s self and the others involved. In the
film, it was not only the people who were harmed who tried to understand the
perpetrator, but the convicts were grateful for the chance to get to know those
victims. As “Mark” said, he had seen “Steve,” the policeman he shot several
times as “just something in the way,” but in their correspondence and meeting
together, he has to recognize Steve as a person living with the physical pain
and disability from that assault. The film notes that convicts tend to blame
their victims for what happened but for those who get to meet the victims (or
the grieving family members of the person murdered) they learn to take responsibility
for their own actions and be freed from the paralyzing bonds of self-pity.

Remarkably the
film didn’t delve into the shameful problem of racism in the American justice
system – the three pairs of individuals presented in the film were all looked Caucasian
(one convict had a Spanish-sounding name). Only in the commentary of Azim
Khamisa (who was featured in “The Power of Forgiveness”) is there a story where
the perpetrator is African American. Mr. Khamisa with powerful insight
recognizes the deprived circumstances of the boy who murdered his son,
circumstances common to urban segregated neighborhoods. In the footage from
various prisons shown during the commentaries, one can’t help notice the great
majority of prisoners are dark-skinned.

In our
discussion group we were fortunate to have Fate, a worker in the Violence
Prevention project of Cease Fire, who spent twelve years in prison after
committing crimes with a youth gang. He brought to our attention the problem of
ex-convicts still judged as “criminals.” That is one area for we religious
leaders to raise our voices – to ask our members as employers and landlords to
put the teachings of non-prejudice into practice. Though most of us may not be
convicted criminals, according to the Teachings, we have already committed and
keep committing crimes (of thought, word and deed) against other living beings,
and we wouldn’t want anyone to keep bringing up our defilements as a reason to
deny us jobs and housing.

Several years
ago at our temple we were blessed to have the participation of the late Johnny
King, an activist for violence prevention who got me involved in the expungement
campaign (Illinois Senate Bill 788 signed in 2003). One time when he didn’t
show up for study class I found out he was arrested for parole violation and I
had to navigate the online prisoner registry to find out where he was so I
could send him the reading materials. Now we have a presently attending member
who confided his past conviction to me but I’m not identifying him to other
members so that he won’t be stigmatized. There may be others in our midst who were
and maybe are criminals, but the important thing is for them to be accepted
totally as our fellow Dharma-learners at the temple.

[Post script Feb. 21 - I should add that as we well know in the Chicago area, that the person convicted for a crime is not necessarily guilty. Too many people, especially those of color, get caught up in the justice system serving prison terms for crimes they didn't commit while the actual perpetrators can't be found or have managed to escape prosecution. So we should keep in mind that the ex-cons returning to our communities may not have been criminals at all.]

Friday, February 13, 2015

Yesterday I had
to deal with two PO’ed people. One was a Dharma School parent (thankfully it
was the superintendent Diana talking and e-mailing with her and not me
directly) and the other was a community college student e-mailing about her
class assignment.

Our outgoing
temple president wrote an article in the February bulletin about how the number
of first-time visitors had doubled from 2011 (253 people) to 2014 (496 people).
He noted that our temple has become the “go-to place in Chicago for those
exploring Buddhism.” But from the two people I had to deal with yesterday, I
see it’s not such a good thing that our temple comes up on top in anyone’s
Google search.

[photo shows form given to
first-time visitors against background of the fabric patch cushion we use for
our metal folding-chairs]

The great
majority of first-time (and only-time) visitors are college and high-school
students who had an assignment “to visit a house of worship of a religion
outside of your own.” For the most part these kids (and the parents who have to
chauffeur them) stay in the background and don’t bother anyone much except to ask
a couple questions and take a photo proving they were there. But it becomes a
problem for our members when the students start to get too intrusive – such as
one group showed up with elaborate film equipment, sticking their camera in
each person’s face as they went up to offer incense. We’ve since then asked
people not to photograph during service and to ask for our members’ permission
before filming them.

We’ve had dozens
of graduate students doing studies of our temple which involved observing
various activities over several weeks and doing extensive interviews of a
sample group of members. So I didn’t think anything different about the
Northwestern University student who came saying her study is about children and
religion. I directed her to Diana, the superintendent, and thought it would be
no big deal for the student to observe the Dharma School classes.

After the
student’s second visit and a request to have families go through an interview
process, we heard from the upset parent. She said it was very disconcerting for grade-school children to be asked, “How does it feel to be part of
a minority religion?” She said it was careless of us to allow an outside party
to be in the Dharma School classrooms without any checking of their credentials.
These days it’s imaginable that someone with criminal intent could claim they
are just a student doing research. So now at least when it involves contact
with children, our temple will have to insist on references and a background
check of anyone visiting us for the supposed purpose of academic research.

The e-mail
exchange I had with the student from Harold Washington College shows that even
academic research isn’t such a great thing for our temple to be participating
in. The student felt that as someone taking a “Philosophy of Religion” course,
we should be pleased that she chose our group to visit and myself as the
minister and the whole temple leadership should be willing to drop everything
to answer the boatload of questions she has about Buddhism. She felt by
praising Buddhism as the religion she’s most excited to explore, that we should
be welcoming her as our potential next leader (i.e. savior). We get a lot
e-mails like that and it makes me feel like we’re the apes and the students all
think they are Dian Fossey saving us from extinction because of their
willingness to study us. Most of the time someone more diplomatic than me will
respond to the student inviting them to attend our Sunday service, but
yesterday and a few times in the past, I responded as someone in a real bad mood
(essentially telling her to get in line and take a number with all the other
students coming on Sundays wanting interviews for their class papers) and so
the student wrote back accusing me of making her feel “inferior.”

I think I better
prepare a stock response – telling the students to go visit the Midwest
Buddhist Temple (I already did that with the second Northwestern student also
researching “children and religion”). At Midwest, the office manager Jesse is
there most of the week and on Sundays, willing and able to answer all kinds of
questions people have about Buddhism. Midwest also has a whole cadre of
“minister assistants” (including Jesse) certified by the Buddhist Churches of
America – so I’ve also started referring churches and schools to Midwest who
want a speaker to travel hours to their location.

I’ve heard Dr. Mark
Unno say he did his research on the Shingon sect because he didn’t want to
subject his own beliefs in Jodo Shinshu to the rigors of American academic
analysis. I’m grateful that in Japan at places such as Otani University it’s
okay to be a searcher and researcher at the same time and almost all the
professors are deeply committed to Buddhism as the basis for their own lives.
But in the West, academics feel it’s a liability to be emotionally attached to
their object of study (one University of Wisconsin professor told me Dr. Haneda
would’ve made a good scholar if he wasn’t such a gudosha, “seeker of the Way”). So for all you scholars and would-be
scholars, if you want to study Buddhists in the same way you observe lab rats,
please stay away from me and our temple’s members. But if you are sincere about
exploring Buddhism as a possible basis for your own life, our doors are wide
open for you.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

I usually tell
people I’m an agnostic about reincarnation, but if there’s a case to be made
for the possibility of one life continuing in another body, I’d say it was
Manshi Kiyozawa (1863-1903) returning to this world as Shuichi Maida
(1907-1967).

Maida had a body
that Kiyozawa would wish for – tall and strong. Maida could have pursued
athletics but gave up all sports in high school. According to an interview with
his sister that I read in the Kaiundo
newsletter, Maida was a discus thrower but after a teammate lost his grip and
the discus flew into the stands injuring some spectators, Maida saw that all
sports involved possible injury to other beings. His insistence on avoiding
harm to other beings was poignantly expressed in his refusal to engage in the
military exercises imposed on young males in Imperial Japan. In two articles we
read in our weekly study class, “Rusty Rifle” and “Leg Injury,” he echoes the
“cowardly” stance I posit about the historical Buddha in my previous post (October
2014 “Gifts from Cowardice: AWOL Siddhartha”).

Yet as
enthusiastic I am about revisiting Dr. Haneda’s translations (from the early
1980s study class he conducted at our temple) of Maida’s autobiographical
writings, the current class wonders why we’re reading this material. To them he
sounds like a jerk as a young man and they anticipate he will have some
dramatic conversion into a saintly sage. In his description of himself, he
seems to have an attitude completely contrary to the Buddhist teachings of
transcending selfishness and being mindful of helping others:

I
think of myself as an impudent [waga-mama]
person. In other words, I think of myself as an irresponsible person. My
outlook on life can be summarized by one word: impudence. Impudence is equal to
insolence, and further to egotism. In impudence, arrogance can be found. This
arrogance has much to do with cowardice or timidity. I am an extremely timid,
cowardly and devious person. Therefore, I become impudent when I behave in a
cunning and irresponsible manner. I do not like to accept responsibility and
prefer to avoid it. In order to keep aloof from my responsibilities, I live as
if I were a stranger to the results of my actions. I live my life always
pretending ignorance.

(from “The Rusty Rifle,” Complete Works XI, pp. 20-22)

To me, Maida
writes about himself in the same vein as Shinran’s harsh self-examination. To
see one’s total self-centeredness is to bemoan the depth of one’s defilement
but at the same time it’s a joyful recognition of the unlimited Light of wisdom
that makes one’s defilement stand out so obviously.

Reincarnation or
not, the real link between Kiyozawa and Maida is Haya Akegarasu (1877-1954).
Akegarasu was Kiyozawa’s student and Maida’s teacher. And all I know is the
“flash” that hit me when I first came to this temple was something that was
said about Akegarasu by one of the ministers. As Maida describes the lecture
where he first encountered Akegarasu:

Rev.
Akegarasu pointed to his forehead, a place between his eyebrows and said, “If
you intently watch here and listen to my talk, you must have some kind of flash
at least once during these three nights. It is alright if you don’t know what
made you have the flash. It is all right if you don’t remember the content of
my talk. Truth is a flash. If you can experience only one flash, you have not
wasted your time in coming here to listen to my talk.”

I don’t even
remember which minister I had heard, but more and more, I believe it was Rev.
Gyoko Saito because for all of his life in America he only wanted to convey
Akegarasu’s teachings and never be looked up as himself being any kind of
teacher (much less a “venerable”).

When I went to
hear Mike Conway’s public lecture in Kyoto (while I was there for ritual
training at Higashi Honganji in December), he was introduced as someone who
encountered Buddhism through Akegarasu. As he mentioned in that lecture and his
other talks, at least Mike can identify me as the minister who spoke and he
remembered the content of the poem I quoted – it was Toa Nomoto’s verse given
at one of Akegarasu’s memorial services. Akegarasu’s memorial day is August 27,
usually a sweltering time in Japan (zansho,
“remaining heat” as well as high humidity). Ms. Nomoto said, “In the midst of
summer heat, a cool breeze is felt.”

In the life of
Shuichi Maida we see that the summer heat of our burning defilements is never
tamped down or escaped, but we can hear how he enjoyed the cool breeze of
Dharma coming through his teacher. In the weeks ahead I may continue to fail in
convincing the class attendees of Maida’s significance, but I’ll be enjoying
how his insights deepen my appreciation of the nembutsu in my life.